Seoul for The Solo Traveller: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Hire a green Ttareungi city bike from the dock, ride east under Mapo and Hangang bridges, and watch the Moonlight Rainbow fountain fire off Banpo bridge at dusk.

Convenience-store ramyeon at the riverside tables with the runners and the delivery scooters, the city's open-air living room.

A counter seat and a bowl of blood-sausage soup with a basket of rice, in a place that has not changed its menu since the hillside above was fields.

Four hours up the fortress valley to the 836-metre summit, with the cable chains on the last granite dome and all of Seoul under you at sunrise.

A jjimjilbang for the knees: charcoal rooms, a salt cave, a nap on the heated floor in borrowed pyjamas, and the sheep's-head towel if you must.

The original of the pig's-trotter alley, open since 1961: a solo portion of sliced jokbal, shrimp sauce and a bottle of soju at the counter.

An hour north by train, a five-minute ferry, and a half-moon island of metasequoia avenues to walk or cycle end to end before the afternoon crowds.

Sunday evening bands and dance crews on the pedestrian strip; stand at the back with a canned coffee and move on when you like.

Gangster tteokbokki, so named for the owners' build, eaten standing at the counter with fried sundae and a paper cup of fish-cake broth.

Up the city wall stairs from Jangchung-dan Park in the dark, past the Joseon beacon mounds, to watch the sun come over Achasan and the river light up.

The 1925 Seoul Station, a red-brick Byzantine dome by a Tokyo University architect, now free exhibition halls where you can see the old third-class waiting room.

The oldest restaurant in Seoul, licensed in 1904: a bowl of milky ox-bone soup, rice tipped in, and spring onions from the jar, done in twenty minutes.